Uber Elevate: All the Highlights from UAM’s Biggest Show
Uber's third
annual Elevate Summit has closed, and you can be forgiven for missing some of
the announcements which hit downtown Washington fast and hard. Luckily, Avionics is here to round
them all up for you in one place.
Uber’s New Vehicle Partner: Jaunt
Concept
imagery of Jaunt Air Mobility's UAM vehicle. (Jaunt)
Elevate came
out of the gate with four manufacturing partners: Bell, EmbraerX, Pipistrel
Vertical Solutions and Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences. At last year’s
Uber Elevate Summit, the company added Karem Aircraft to that list. This year,
Jaunt Air Mobility makes six. Uber’s engineering director for aviation, Mark
Moore, said the company feels no need to limit the partnerships, seeing itself
as an Amazon-like marketplace for any vehicle that meets the safety and mission
requirements Uber sets forth. That said, Jaunt is already a bit behind the
curve of Uber’s ambitious 2023 launch schedule, with Moore acknowledging that
he thinks “Jaunt's certification will be slightly later.”
To read
about the newest eVTOL concept to win Uber’s heart and its unique slowed-rotor
technology, check out our story on Jaunt’s announcement as Uber’s sixth
manufacturing partner.
Uber Down Under
Uber’s first
two locations will be the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area and Los Angeles,
but the company has long said it wants to go global with its UAM offerings.
Company leadership has been visiting and looking into international cities
including Mumbai, Tokyo, Santiago, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, and Paris.
Ultimately, the first city outside of the U.S. to receive the Elevate service
will be Melbourne, Australia.
When
choosing a location, Uber looks at five primary factors, according to head of
public policy for aviation Kate Fraser:
1.
Whether the economy is viable
2. Climate: Meteorological
conditions have to be conducive, particularly needing good visuals on most days
early on
3.
A favorable regulatory environment
4. Uber must have a
successful ground business in the area to tie into, as the company is looking
at UAM as part of a whole ecosystem of travel, not a standalone.
5. Existing infrastructure
and routes, which can speed up adoption
A focus on Skyports
Uber made a
slew of announcements signaling movement on the infrastructure front as it
prepares cities for its aerial invasion.
A Foster +
Partners-created rendering of a skyport lounge in Santa Clara. (Foster +
Partners)
Real Estate and Design
Partners
To that end,
the company has announced that the first skyport will be built in Santa Clara,
California by newly announced real estate partner Related Companies. Related
has a 240-acre urban development in progress there.
The second
planned Skyport will go up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas with
Hillwood, another Uber real estate partner (though the first announced).
Skyports can
be built onto preexisting parking garages, hotels and airports, or constructed
on their own, and Uber is already talking about the construction of eventual
Megaports — eventual multi-platform buildings to facilitate thousands of
takeoffs per hour. In addition to landing pads for eVTOL vehicles, Uber wants
its dedicated Skyports to have pickup/dropoff locations for Uber ground transportation,
Uber Eats café seating and even charging areas for Uber electric bikes and
scooters; an Uber-centric multi-modal mobility hub.
Outside of
the developers, Uber also has a series of architectural design firms coming out
with their visions of what a Skyport might look like.
Skyport Operations
Uber is
partnering with Signature Flight Services to conduct Skyport operations, the
company announced. Signature operates more than 200 private aviation terminals
globally, and will get involved in logistics and management for the undertaking
that is the Skyports. Signature’s role with Uber will start earlier than that,
as it is also partnering on Uber Copter, Uber’s UAM solution using traditional
helicopters set to launch in New York next month.
“We’re the
proud partner for fulfilling [Uber Copter] and making that a reality. And
that’s really just a building block for us to test and learn so that we can go
and apply it to flying eVTOL,” said Shawn Hall, Signature’s chief commercial
officer.
Check here to
read more about Uber's real estate and operations partners and here to see
the design visions for future skyports.
Safran Cabin Design
Safran's
cabin design for Uber's UAM mission. (Safran)
At Elevate,
Safran and Uber unveiled their design for an eVTOL cabin, featuring seats and
windows positioned to maximize each passenger’s legroom, privacy and view.
Wide-swinging doors are meant to be inviting while expediting the embark/disembark
process, since efficiency on the Skyport will be crucial.
Uber has no
plans to make its own vehicles, but Safran sees a partnership with the
rideshare company as setting it up to pitch its generic cabin to any
manufacturing partner with full confidence that it is tailored to the Uber
mission that everybody is trying to meet. Hear from Safran Cabins’ executive
vice president Scott Savian and read about our hands-on with the modular,
customizable compartment here.
AT&T as Connectivity Provider
Bell's Nexus
concept with the ducted fans tilted forward for cruise mode. (Nick Zazulia/AVI)
Always-on
connectivity will be a must in the world of UAM. Uber and its partners plan to
automate as much of the vehicle operation as possible — and eventually
transition to unmanned operation — which demands a vehicle that is always
receiving and sending out data, functioning as part of a connected fleet. In
pursuit of that goal, Uber announced AT&T as a connectivity partner to
pursue how LTE — and 5G, when available — can best serve eVTOL and cargo
drones. The companies said that while they’re exploring general 4G and 5G use
now, future projects may include edge computing and network slicing.
Food Delivery by Drone
Uber will
begin testing food delivery by drone in high-density urban areas through its
Uber Eats service, the company announced at Elevate. Uber has already done some
small-scale testing of drone-delivered McDonald’s food in San Diego through the
federal drone Integration Pilot Program and is ready to expand out in both
location and offering in an attempt to decrease delivery times for Uber Eats.
According to Uber, its model envisions drones landing atop parked vehicles for
Uber Eats drivers in the area to complete the final leg of delivery and hand
the food off to customers. The drone-delivery will rely on Uber’s Elevate Cloud
Systems airspace management system, which also supports various apps the
company is developing to facilitate other ventures.
Honeywell's Suite
Honeywell
announced its entree into the UAM space later than many other companies. But
when it did, it did it with substance. The company is providing tip-to-tail
solutions for avionics and propulsion and has already locked up a number of
manufacturers to supply. As Elevate came around, the company announced that it
would be providing its full suite of systems for new Uber partner Jaunt, and at
the show, Honeywell was showing off its bite-sized fly-by-wire and heading and reference
systems, an inertial measuring unit about the size of a hockey puck, modular
collision avoidance radar and a turbogenerator system with electromechanical
actuators.
Check here to
read about Honeywell's fly-by-wire system and here to
read about its work on electric powertrains.
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